BARS Exchange

By Matthew Sangster

Get your free tickets for the next season of BARS Digital Events! Please book for each individual event you’d like to attend via Eventbrite – click on the links below to go to the booking pages.

Twitter: @BARS_DigiEvents

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Reconfiguring the Sublime: Romanticism’s EcoGothic Waters

Thursday 3rd November 2022 – 5pm to 6:30pm UK Time

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/reconfiguring-the-sublime-romanticisms-ecogothic-waters-tickets-435765896527

From Lord Byron’s ‘Thunderstorm on the Alps’ to Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound, Romantic writers have often extolled the beauty of mountains – their crucial role in an experience of the sublime. But how do rivers, oceans, and other bodies of water engender the sublime? How does the inherent fluidity of water inform ecocritical perspectives? This roundtable proposes that the emergence of an aquatic sublime, which destabilises narrative, social, and metaphysical expectations, can be traced back to the Romantic Gothic. Exploring the elusive, ambivalent Gothic nature of bodies of water, we theorise the emergence and legacies of a water-bound approach to the sublime, following in on Hester Blum’s theorisation of the oceanic as distinct from ‘landlocked perspectives’.

Speakers: Madeline Potter (Edge Hill University), Giulia Champion (University of Warwick/Edinburgh Napier University), Roslyn Irving (University of Liverpool and XJTLU), Dorka …read more

Source:: https://www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=4404

By Francesca Killoran

The BARS ‘On This Day’ Blog series celebrates the 200th anniversary of literary and historical events of the Romantic period. Want to contribute a future post? Get in touch.

The BARS ‘On This Day’ series brings you Almudena Jimenez Virosta’s discussion of Lord Byron’s The Vision of Judgement which was first published on this day in the first edition of The Liberal.

Today marks the bicentenary of two events: the publication of Lord Byron’s The Vision of Judgement, and of The Liberal – the very first issue of the periodical in which the poem first appeared. Edited by Leigh Hunt and founded by Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, the radical journal was short-lived from the beginning, especially given Shelley’s demise three months earlier in July 1822. However, in only four volumes, The Liberal housed significant pieces for Romantic Studies, such as Shelley’s translations from Faust, included in this issue, and William Hazlitt’s My First Acquaintance with Poets, in the third. According to Mary Shelley’s reporting to Edward Trelawny in May 1823, this issue was enjoyable:

'I had no opportunity to send you a second No. of the Liberal [...] the third number has come out, and we had a copy  ...read more 

Source:: https://www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=4399
			

By Emily Paterson-Morgan

The 1822 eruption of Vesuvius fed into contemporary discussions and imaginings on the themes of disaster, change, and the power and beauty of the natural world. It was also a focus for the emerging sciences of chemistry, mineralogy, and geology, both as a natural laboratory and a crucible for innovations in measurement and analysis, and inspired new ideas about the links between volcanoes, Earth’s interior, and deep time. Vesuvius also fired the imaginations of writers and artists to create works exploring the sublime, natural power, colour, ruins, destruction, and Apocalyptic visions. As the best-known volcano in Western culture, well documented since Pliny’s accounts of the 79 AD eruption, Vesuvius also offers a unique record of human responses to and anticipation of disaster. The Herculaneum excavations in the eighteenth century, conditioned by the classical past, intensified interest in subsequent eruptions, especially that of 1822, as evident in the many scientific and creative responses. Writing and art in the period not only allow unusual insight into the complicated responses to disaster but also into the psychology of living with the threat of cataclysm, which may, in turn, shed light on our contemporary responses – rational, creative, psychological – to the impending climate …read more

Source:: https://www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=4396

By Emily Paterson-Morgan

Leuven, 26-27 June 2023

As one of the oldest and most widely practised forms of reflection on vernacular literatures, Shakespeare criticism has helped shape modern literary scholarship worldwide. The mutual influence between Shakespeare critics of different nations is well known and has in some cases been extensively studied and debated (see e.g. the controversy that has long surrounded Coleridge’s debt to Schlegel). Going beyond questions of influence, this conference aims to refocus the debate on the actual channels of transmission through which Shakespeare criticism has been circulated and received across linguistic and national boundaries, and on the various new audiences that it has reached through that circulation.

The conference will take place in Leuven, Belgium on 26 and 27 June 2023. It is organized by the research team of the project ‘Bringing the Bard Back Home? The English translation of foreign Shakespeare criticism in the long 19th century‘, funded by the KU Leuven research council. Our plenary speakers are Roger Paulin (Cambridge) and Rui Carvalho Homem (Porto).

Possible topics include:

– Translations (faithful or not, authorized or not, with or without paratextual framing…), translators and publishers of Shakespeare criticism in different languages.

– The extracting, anthologizing and …read more

Source:: https://www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=4394

By katiesnow11

by Cecilia Neil-Smith

Cecilia is entering her second year of PhD study in Art History and Visual Culture at the University of Exeter. Her project focuses on mermaids and sirens as figures of indeterminate gender in the art and literature of the late Victorian Era. Having previously studied English (BA) and Victorian Literature, Art and Culture (MA) at Royal Holloway, University of London, Cecilia took a break from academia and taught English in a secondary school in London for a year, before returning to pursue a PhD.

During the Victorian era there was a host of images and literature addressing the issue of the famous ‘Waterloo suicides’. Sparked by Thomas Hood’s ‘The Bridge of Sighs’ in 1844, the interest in depicting fallen women leaping from the bridge was taken up by writers such as Charles Dickens and James Greenwood, and many eminent artists including Frederick Watts, Augustus Egg, John Millais and Gustav Doré. What most representations had in common was a tendency to romanticise the demise of such women with thematic motifs, such as the idea that the suicide victims were motivated by lunacy or love. However, crucially, they all in some respect used the setting of Waterloo Bridge to highlight …read more

Source:: https://romanticillustrationnetwork.com/2022/10/13/one-more-unfortunate-how-illustrations-of-thomas-hoods-the-bridge-of-sighs-shaped-attitudes-towards-waterloo-bridge-suicides-in-the-victorian-era/

By Francesca Killoran

Want to write for the BARS Blog? Get in touch with a proposal for our series ‘On This Day’.

This series is about Romantic bicentenaries, and has been running since July 2015. We were inspired to create the series following the popularity on Twitter of the ‘OnThisDay’ hashtag, and we hope to present a catalogue of #OnThisDay blog posts that relate to literary and historical events from exactly 200 years ago. The premise of the blog is to give readers a snapshot of 1822 in 2022 (and on into 2023 and beyond!), relevant to that month or even that particular day. The series is also a part of #Romantics200.

The best way to get a feel of this series is to read our excellent posts from past contributors. You can see all the posts here.

Some upcoming bicentenaries in 2022 and 2023 include, but are by no means limited to:

• Franz Liszt, aged 11, debuts as a pianist in Vienna.
• Mary Shelley’s Valperga is published.
• John Hunt publishes Byron’s Don Juan VI-XIV., The Liberal publishes Byron’s “Heaven and Earth” and “The Blues”.
• Charles Lamb’s Essays of Elia is published.
• The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland was established
• Byron …read more

  Source:: https://www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=4384

By Emily Paterson-Morgan

4-5 November 2022, King’s College London

Over the last three years, the Radical Translations Project, funded by the AHRC, has worked to uncover the mobility of revolutionary language – tracking not only what it said, but how it travelled, where it went and what it became.

The digital resource we have created maps the 3-way circulation of translations and people between Britain, France and Italy in the revolutionary period (1789-1815). In trying to grasp the scale and speed of revolutionary change, digital tools have provided perspectives that reach across these methodological divisions, even as they present challenges of their own.

Join us for this 2-day international workshop, which will establish a dialogue with scholars who have inspired us and whose work we have drawn upon in order to deepen our understanding of how these different methodological perspectives can help reconstruct the entangled histories of the period and beyond. Everyone welcome – no pre-registration needed.

…read more

Source:: https://www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=4381

By Emily Paterson-Morgan

11 November 2022, Institut Français, London Kensington

Why is there so much global inequality? What would an equal society look like? What do the terms liberty and equality mean to you today? Join us to explore the ‘Manifesto of Equals’ (1796), a founding text of anarchist, socialist and communist revolutions, through translation, a short film, and an interactive discussion. Award-winning translator Cristina will lead a mini-masterclass on how to translate the Manifesto from its original French, based on a new translation made by students from around Europe, and invite the audience to experience and reflect on the act of translating, as well as respond with their own interpretations. Everyone can take part, even if they don’t know French.

This will be followed the ca. 15 min film “Writing on the Sand”, by members of the French theatre collective La Phenomena. Inspired by this translation and the Manifesto’s call for radical equality, the film – also a collaboration with students – recounts a struggle for collective ideals constantly hindered by the entropy of everyday life.

Places are limited so booking is essential through Evenbrite.

Part of the Being Human Festival

…read more

Source:: https://www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=4379

By Francesca Killoran

The Jerwood Centre at Wordsworth Grasmere is home to the works of many exciting authors, particularly those with a local or regional connection. The aim of my visit this year was simple: to examine the manuscript writings of Cumbrian poet Susanna Blamire (1747-94). Her poetic works, many of which have only ever existed in manuscript form, cover a rich array of topics, including healthcare, the environment, matters of sociability, as well as travel, and religion. My own interest lies in Blamire’s reflections on her life as both a lay medical practitioner and patient of chronic ill health within her writing.

The Jerwood Centre at Wordsworth Grasmere is home to the works of many exciting authors, particularly those with a local or regional connection. The aim of my visit this year was simple: to examine the manuscript writings of Cumbrian poet Susanna Blamire (1747-94). Her poetic works, many of which have only ever existed in manuscript form, cover a rich array of topics, including healthcare, the environment, matters of sociability, as well as travel, and religion. My own interest lies in Blamire’s reflections on her life as both a lay medical practitioner and patient of chronic ill health within her writing.

Jonathan Wordsworth, …read more

Source:: https://www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=4373

By Emily Paterson-Morgan

New Book! Games That Haunt Us: Gothic Game Space as a Living Nightmare

MultiPlay is ecstatic to announce that after the success of our Gothic Games and Disturbing Play Conference CFP, we are working to create an edited collection around the theme of the Gothic.

We are currently seeking abstracts of 300 words, along with 100 word author biographies, to be sent to networkmultiplay@gmail.com by Friday 7th of October. Please use the heading ‘Games That Haunt Us’. Final chapters will be 6000 words.

We are looking for chapters that focus on disruptive play, Gothic themes, disturbing mechanisms, and uneasy tension.

We are particularly keen for international applicants. We are also eager for abstracts which focus on Gothic themes in relation to Japan, the Southern States of America, and work linked to zombie theory from across South Africa.

Some prompts for your consideration (which should be a point of inspiration, and not limitation):

• Hauntological perspectives onFinal Fantasy VII
• The use of magic and fear in Ghost of Tsushima multiplayer’s experience
• Gothic artefacts
• Zombies, werewolves and vampires, too
• The posthuman Gothic
• Death and decay in videogames
• You can’t escape: labyrinths and mazes in game design

If you have any further questions then please …read more

Source:: https://www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=4371